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Rose and John were coming to Calgary for the first time and their children; Ben and Amanda were accompanying them on the trip. They had always heard about the Greatest Show on Earth and thought one day they would make the trip to see the show for themselves.
In Winnipeg the big show of the year was the Exhibition and while that was exciting, it did not offer the taste of Western life that the Calgary Stampede promised. John had grown up on a farm, but his children had never benefited from the experience of working with livestock or riding horses.
Rose had always been a city girl and did not see the attraction of the Calgary Stampede, but decided the trip meant too much to her husband and son to say anything to discourage the voyage. She really wasn’t sure what she would do there, but she could find something to amuse herself while the boys wandered the grounds.
Ben, the younger of the two children, enjoyed playing Cowboys and Indians and was excited by the prospect of meeting real cowboys. Maybe they would teach him how to ride a horse and how to rope, just like he had seen in the John Wayne movies.
Amanda, already a teenager, felt the trip was going to be boring, she would rather stay in Winnipeg where she could make frequent trips to the beach and spend time with her friends. Her father stressed the importance of family vacations and Amanda understood that protesting the trip would not get her anywhere. She would just have to make the best out of a difficult situation.
They would all remember the summer of 1964 and the long car trip from Winnipeg to Calgary. They drove through sweltering heat, sticking to the vinyl seats, anxiously awaiting their arrival in Calgary. As John drove, he began to tell his family about the history of the Stampede and how the first agricultural exhibition was held in 1886. A gathering of like-minded agricultural types would become a showcase for the skills of horsemen; participants in the exhibition would trade horse stories and boast of their skills and prowess, ultimately resulting in a competition to see who had the best skills. In 1923 the first competitive Chuckwagon Races were held, little did they know at that time how popular the event would become. John’s grandfather participated in some of the earliest Stampedes and often reminisced about the friends he had made.
The trip to the Stampede grounds didn’t happen until the day after their arrival in Calgary. Neither Rose nor Amanda were in any particular rush to go to the grounds, there wouldn’t be anything for them to do. Ben and his father both emerged from the room dressed in blue jeans, cowboy boots and cowboy hats. Amanda rolled her eyes, she had never seen her father in jeans before and she wanted to laugh at how nerdy he looked. Ben, on the other hand, was dressed in the outfit that we wore to play Cowboys and Indians and he looked at home in his getup.
The line up to get into the Stampede was long, but it seemed to move quickly enough for everyone concerned. As they entered the grounds Amanda was surprised to see a full midway, filled with rides and booths for playing any number of games. Rose was equally stunned to find that there were pavilions where she could go and see items of interest to her, such as hand crafts and old fashioned baked goods.
John and Ben headed straight for the stables, which connected to the rodeo grounds. Ben wanted to pet a horse and maybe even learn to ride, if only a cowboy would invite him to do so. The boys spent their afternoon wandering around the stables and watching the rodeo. When evening fell, the Evans reassembled in the fair grounds and discussed their plan of action. After a family vote, which happened to be a tie, it was determined that they would attend the grandstand show. The show was supposed to be wonderful, filled with fireworks and the debut of a new signing group, billed as the “Young Canadians”.
The show began with the booming voice of the rodeo announcer, welcoming everyone to the grandstand show of the Greatest Show on Earth. The crowd roared with delight as they watched a parade of rodeo participants riding their horses past the stands. The stage show was well received by the crowd, especially when the Young Canadians appeared on stage, dressed in Western attire, singing and dancing in celebration of the Stampede. The evening ended with the Evans family happily returning to their hotel, secure in the knowledge that the Calgary Stampede could be magical for anyone who chose to attend.
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